The job has never been boring
Ed Cumming retires after 26 years with the Forest Service
Ed Cumming grew up in Columbia Falls. He graduated from high school in 1968, enlisted in the Army and stepped on a land mine while serving in Vietnam. It took his left leg off below the knee.
He could have let the war sour him. Instead, he came home with a greater appreciation for life and the people in it.
Cumming took several jobs after the war — a switcher at the KCFW-TV control room, where he watched Johnny Carson every night, as a corrections officer in Florida while on “vacation,” and as a maintenance worker for the city of Columbia Falls.
He’s always had the gift of gab and a way to make even the most dour of folks smile. In 1988, he took a job with the Forest Service as a public information officer.
Over the past 26 years, Cumming’s heard and told plenty of stories. But his greatest joy comes from just helping people out. Most folks, after all, just want to know where they can camp or fish or walk their dog — because when they visit Glacier National Park, one of the first things they learn is they can’t walk their dogs on the Park’s trails.
“Ninety percent is just being honest with people,” he told the Hungry Horse News last week. “Tell them the rules and cut them some slack.”
Along the way Cumming’s also helped a hunter or two bag an elk, helped a fisherman or three catch a lunker, and helped plenty of firewood gatherers find a downed a tree or two.
On the day we talked to him, a man came into the Hungry Horse/Glacier View Ranger District office and asked for a firewood permit. He put $20 on the table, and Cumming shot the breeze with him for 15 minutes.
“Over the years, I’ve developed my own clientele,” Cumming said.
Cumming said it wasn’t just the war that made him appreciate life. He also did volunteer work with the DREAM program that helps disabled people ski on Big Mountain. The experience made his injury seem insignificant.
Anyone who has worked in the Flathead National Forest for any length of time has a bear story, and Cumming has plenty. But one that comes to mind occurred on the Amtrak train.
The Forest Service offered a ranger-interpretive program one summer on the train ride from East Glacier to Whitefish. Cumming was in the smoking lounge giving his presentation when a woman asked when she would see a grizzly.
Without thinking much about it, Cumming told the woman to go upstairs and look out the left-hand side of the train. It just so happened that the train was passing a corn spill alongside the tracks, and when the woman looked out the window, there was the bear.
“Mr. Ranger! Mr. Ranger! We saw a grizzly,” the woman exclaimed.
The job has never been boring
“Every day, it’s something different,” he says. “That’s what’s fun about it.”
Cumming will retire from the Forest Service at the end of April. He’s been married to his wife Loree for 43 years, has three children, Dennis, Kim and Michelle, and six grandchildren. Outside the Forest Service, he’s active with the North Valley Sportsman Club and serves on the Montana Veterans Home Memorial Fund Board.
He plans on doing some traveling after retirement. That’s about it. It’s been a rewarding career.
The Forest Service will hold an open house for Cumming at the ranger station in Hungry Horse on Friday, April 27, from 1 to 3 p.m. People can stop in and wish him well.